The Attitudes of Finnish School Teachers Towards Commercial Educational Games

E-learning and educational software have since long been accepted as tools for teaching and learning. Even though games as such have been used in learning through ages, digital serious games, however, are still in the beginning of the process as the entire field is only emerging. The focus of this paper is to analyze opinions, experiences and attitudes of Finnish school teachers regarding digital educational/learning games, especially when they are equated with other commercial material for teaching. The conclusions are based on the material collected in three occasions during the year 2007. Surveys were used to collect information from about 400 teachers, some of whom were also interviewed. Most of the teachers who participated in the surveys work in comprehensive school (grades 1-9) in which the students are aged from 7 to 16. The study was based on the needs of a game developer company HappyWise Ltd. The surveys and interviews were conducted in order to direct the development process of Growwwings.net - Sustainable development learning game, in its pre-marketing phase.